[dobsongeorge]

I have an older Dell dimension L1000R Pentium III. It is running ok but is kind of slow. I am fairly knowledgeble with restoring computers but this one is driving me nuts.

I am currently running XP and am trying to restore to XP.

When restarted and the Dell splash screen pops up i hit ESC and then delete to enter BIOS setup

The desktops uses BIOS Version A11

I have attempted to move the ATAPI CD Rom to the top of the Boot Device list, move floppy to last and even remove floppy completely but on startup instead of information to delete old partition and install new OS it pops up " Invalid Boot Diskette" Insert boot diskette into drive A.

I have the disk in the cd drive and i know it works as a boot disk as i have used it just yesterday on a different pc.

I have even attempted to make the computer recognize the cd rom as the primary IDE Master under IDE controllers.

All this and I still recieve the same message of invalid boot diskette in drive A

Any help at all or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Mumbodog]

There is an option to "disable" the floppy drive in that Dell bios somewhere.

Be sure the jumper on the back of the Hard Drive and CD rom drive is set to CS cable select, they must be on a Dell. The hard drive must be connected to the end of the IDE cable and the other end of that cable connected to ide 0 on the motherboard.

[dobsongeorge]

tryed disabling floppy drive already from diskette configuration and even in the boot list...neither worked...when i disable from the diskette i get a hardware error and the OS want me to start windows from last known good configuration. someone told me to try to disable it in boot list and move atapi cd-rom to top list which i did already and then disable "floppy drive seek"

well of course i looked and my BIOS Version A11 doesnt have that.

then i thought....let me update bios and maybe that could help.

but even with that i would need to save bios files to a disk to boot and i obviously cant do that..and i havent seen a floppy disk around my home for a long time so thats out of the question too. sorry if its something i am missing. i appreciate your help already and any other ideas you are able to give me


Thanks :-)

[Mumbodog]

Look for a "load defaults" or similar in the bios and do that, save changes on exit, then go back into the bios and make your custom changes.


When a bios gets to doing strange things like this, I always suggest replacing the cmos battery with a new one.